This painting, which initiated a series of pictures devoted to the lives of women, shows Courbet’s three sisters—Zélie, Juliette, and Zoé—strolling in the Communal, a small valley near his native village of Ornans. One of the girls offers alms to a young cowherd. Courbet had high hopes for the work, but when it was exhibited at the Salon of 1852, critics attacked it as tasteless and clumsy. They reviled the models’ common features and countrified costumes, the "ridiculous" little dog and cattle, and the overall lack of unity, including traditional perspective and scale.

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Loan Exhibition of the Works of Gustave Courbet," April 7–May 18, 1919, no. 4 (as "The Village Girls [Les Demoiselles de Village]," lent by Mrs. Harry Payne Bingham).

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "The Taste of Today in Masterpieces of Painting before 1900," July 10–October 2, 1932, no catalogue (lent by Harry Payne Bingham).

Gustave Courbet. Letter to the editor of "Le messager de l'assemblée". November 19, 1851 [English transl. published in P. D. Chu, ed., "Letters of Gustave Courbet," Chicago, 1992, no. 51-3, p. 103], mentions that he has begun working on this painting.

Gustave Courbet. Letter to Champfleury. [January? 1852] [English transl. published in P. D. Chu, ed., "Letters of Gustave Courbet," Chicago, 1992, no. 52-2, p. 106], in reference to this picture in the upcoming Salon, declares "I have misled my judges, I have put them on to new terrain: I have made something graceful".

Gustave Courbet. Letter to his family. [May 13, 1853] [English transl. published in P. D. Chu, ed., "Letters of Gustave Courbet," Chicago, 1992, no. 53-3, pp. 111–12], states that the comte de Morny lent the frame of this work for the exhibition of "The Wrestlers" (Szépmüvészeti Muzeum, Budapest; F144) in the Salon of 1853.

Gustave Courbet. Letter to Champfleury. [November–December 1854] [English transl. published in P. D. Chu, ed., "Letters of Gustave Courbet," Chicago, 1992, no. 54-8, p. 133], mentions it and "Grainsifters" (Nantes; F166) as part of a series on country life.

Gustave Courbet. Letter to Ernest L'Epine. [January or February? 1856] [English transl. published in P. D. Chu, ed., "Letters of Gustave Courbet," Chicago, 1992, no. 56-2, p. 148], states that the comte de Morny still owes Fr 500 for the purchase of this work four years earlier.

"Société nationale des beaux-arts." Le Courrier artistique 2 (June 15, 1862), p. 2, lists a picture of this title among those marked for sale in an exhibition at the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts [Exh. Paris 1862].

L. Petit. "G. Courbet." Le Hanneton (June 13, 1867) [reprinted in Ref. Léger 1920], copies this and several other works in a caricature.

Gustave Courbet. Letter to Jules Castagnary. [April] 21, [1867] [English transl. published in P. D. Chu, ed., "Letters of Gustave Courbet," Chicago, 1992, no. 67-9, p. 309], mentions his plan to request the loan of this painting from Mme de Morny for his private exhibition of that year.

Fortuné Marion. Letter to Heinrich Morstatt. 1867 [excerpt published in English transl. in Ref. Barr 1938, p. 224], mentions seeing this work in Courbet's 1867 exhibition, calling it "the best that has been done to this day in painting".

Champfleury. Souvenirs et portraits de jeunesse. Paris, 1872, p. 176, calls it an admirable landscape misunderstood by the critics; quotes from Courbet's letter to him of January 1852 [Ref. Courbet 1852].

Gustave Courbet. Letter to Jules Castagnary. [April 9, 1876] [English transl. published in P. D. Chu, ed., "Letters of Gustave Courbet," Chicago, 1992, no. 76-12, p. 574], reports that he authorized his attorney to deliver this picture to Mme de Morny [from whom he borrowed it for exhibition in 1867]; describes it as completely ruined and suggests that it be relined.

Gustave Courbet. Letter to Jules Castagnary. March 1, 1877 [English transl. published in P. D. Chu, ed., "Letters of Gustave Courbet," Chicago, 1992, no. 77-10, p. 604], erroneously states that it was purchased by Étienne Baudry [confuses it with "Young Ladies on the Banks of the Seine"; 1856–57; Musée des Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Paris, Petit Palais, Paris; F203].

"Mouvement des arts: Un tableau de Courbet." Chronique des arts et de la curiosité, supplément à la Gazette des beaux-arts (April 6, 1878), p. 106, notes that this picture recently sold for Fr 5,000 at the Hôtel Drouot, from the Morny collection; states that it needs relining due to damage from humidity when the painting was kept in a country house.

Edward Strahan [Earl Shinn], ed. The Art Treasures of America. Philadelphia, [1880], vol. 2, pp. 90–91, ill. (reproduction of a sketch, in reverse), as in the collection of Thomas Wigglesworth, Boston; notes that it is currently on exhibition at the [Boston] Art Club.

Bryson Burroughs. Landscape Paintings. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1934, pp. 19–20, no. 42, calls it "a notable early experiment in realism," noting that the figures were painted in the studio and the landscape copied from a sketch; erroneously states that it was exhibited in 1850.

Charles Sterling and Margaretta M. Salinger. French Paintings: A Catalogue of the Collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Vol. 2, XIX Century. New York, 1966, pp. 106–9, ill., propose that this picture was painted during the winter of 1851–52, noting that the composition is based on several earlier studies.

Georges Boudaille. Gustave Courbet: Painter in Protest. Greenwich, Conn., 1969, pp. 35, 49–50, 52 ill., calls it "The Young Ladies from the Village Giving Alms to a Cow-Girl"; believes that it was most likely completed before Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte's coup of December 2, 1851.

Robert Fernier. Gustave Courbet: Peintre de l'art vivant. Paris, 1969, pp. 50, 60, fig. 40, cites it as an example of Courbet as a history painter.

Denys Sutton. "A Long Affair." Apollo 91 (January 1970), p. 6, states mistakenly that Wigglesworth acquired this work during the 1860s.

Alan Bowness in "Courbet's Early Subject-Matter." French 19th Century Painting and Literature. Ed. Ulrich Finke. New York, [1972], p. 130, considers it "more autobiographical than socio-political in intention".

Janine Bailly-Herzberg. L'eau-forte de peintre au dix-neuvième siècle: La Société des Aquafortistes, 1862–1867. Paris, 1972, vol. 1, p. 219, no. 242, p. 234, ill. (etching), dates the etching after this painting to September 1866, adding that although the etching is signed by Courbet, it cannot be determined whether it was executed by Courbet or Bracquemond.

Jack Lindsay. Gustave Courbet: His Life and Art. New York, 1973, pp. 85, 91–92, 94, 102, 104, 111, 135, 149, 152, 222, 319, 322, asserts that it must have been painted between November 1851 and February 1852; suggests that in it Courbet wished to reaffirm his family relationships.

Benedict Nicolson. Courbet: The Studio of the Painter. New York, [1973], pp. 63–64.

T. J. Clark. Image of the People: Gustave Courbet and the Second French Republic, 1848–1851. Greenwich, Conn., [1973], pp. 78, 114, 133, fig. 37, calls it "Young Ladies of the Village, giving Alms to a Cowherd"; notes that it is one of the first paintings by the artist to show figures in a landscape.

Robert H. Getscher. Félix Bracquemond and the Etching Process. Exh. cat., College of Wooster Art Center Museum. Wooster, Ohio, 1974, pp. 42–43, fig. 36, dates the etching 1866, asserting that it is by Bracquemond and only signed by Courbet.

Linda Nochlin. The Development and Nature of Realism in the Work of Gustave Courbet: A Study of the Style and its Social and Artistic Background. PhD diss., New York University. New York, 1976, pp. 178–85, fig. 98, calls it "Village Maidens Giving Alms to a Guardian of Cattle"; argues that the inconsistencies of the composition resulted from Courbet's intentionally equal emphasis on each separate element.

Hélène Toussaint inGustave Courbet, 1819–1877. Exh. cat., Grand Palais, Paris. London, 1978, pp. 100–102, 108–9, 112, 120, 125, 176, 255, 278, no. 27, ill. [French ed. ,1977, pp. 114–15, 120, 134, 195, 247, ill.], mentions a satirical comedy produced in 1852 featuring a "realist" painter exhibiting a grotesque caricature of this picture; notes that the tree in the middle of the Leeds City Art Gallery sketch was painted out of the final version, though its outline can still be seen; observes that the narrative theme becomes more important in the MMA version; compares it to "The Meeting" (Musée Fabre, Montpellier; F149).

Diane Lesko. "From Genre to Allegory in Gustave Courbet's 'Les demoiselles de village'." Art Journal 38 (Spring 1979), pp. 171–77, figs. 1, 5 (overall and detail), proposes that Courbet intended this picture as a representation of universal charity and thus a resolution to the conflicts between peasantry and bourgeoisie then destroying French society; considers it an integral link in Courbet's "chain of contemporary history paintings"; suggests Rubens's "Education of Marie de Médicis" (Musée du Louvre, Paris), and Watteau's "The Fortuneteller" as sources for the figures; argues that Courbet chose the word "demoiselle" in the title "as a specific historical reference to class conflict".

Patricia Mainardi. "Gustave Courbet's Second Scandal: 'Les demoiselles de village'." Arts Magazine 53 (January 1979), pp. 95–103, fig. 1, discusses the unfashionableness of the young ladies' dresses and interprets the criticism of this picture as linked to social anxieties over the rising rural bourgeoisie.

Richard R. Brettell and Caroline B. Brettell. Painters and Peasants in the Nineteenth Century. Geneva, 1983, p. 126, ill., call it "Young Ladies of the Village Giving Alms to a Cow-Girl in a Valley near Ornans" and date it 1851.

Rae Becker in Sarah Faunce and Linda Nochlin. Courbet Reconsidered. Exh. cat., Brooklyn Museum. Brooklyn, 1988, pp. 104, 106–9, 214, no. 14, ill. (color), compares it with the Leeds City Art Gallery version and with other studies; calls it "an iconographically complex work fashioned on the conventions of normally picturesque rural imagery and transformed into a direct and unembellished portrait of shifting caste systems in the countryside with the full measure of their troubling implications for all of French society"

Klaus Herding. "Brooklyn and Minneapolis: Courbet Reconsidered." Burlington Magazine 132 (March 1989), pp. 244–45, posits that the Leeds version was not a preliminary sketch, but rather was painted after the MMA picture in an attempt to modify the composition in response to the harsh comments of the critics.

Petra ten-Doesschate Chu, ed. Letters of Gustave Courbet. By Gustave Courbet. Chicago, 1992, p. 109 n. 1, p. 112 n. 8, p. 128 letter 54-6, fig. 14, records an edition of Silvestre [Ref. 1856] illustrated with a photograph of this painting (copy in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris); identifies this picture in a list of works to be included in the 1855 Exposition Universelle sent by Courbet to the comte de Nieuwerkerke in November 1854.

Susan Alyson Stein inSplendid Legacy: The Havemeyer Collection. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1993, p. 250, ill. p. 275 (installation photograph from Exh. New York 1919), states that the picture was shipped to Payne from France in early September 1909, and arrived in New York on October 13.

Sarah Faunce. Gustave Courbet. New York, 1993, pp. 21–22, 25, 30, 66–67, no. 10, ill. (color), calls this the first painting in Courbet's series on local life in which the landscape and figures are treated equally.

Michael Kimmelman. "At the Met with Elizabeth Murray: Looking for the Magic in Painting." New York Times (October 21, 1994), p. C28, quotes Murray's remark that Courbet makes you admire the ordinary women in this painting "because he puts this incredible light on them".

James H. Rubin. Courbet. London, 1997, pp. 102–5, 108, 121, 185, 253, colorpl. 66, comments that this painting could be viewed as a pendant to "The Stonebreakers" (F101, destroyed) given its theme of charity and prosperity.

Petra ten-Doesschate Chu. The Most Arrogant Man in France: Gustave Courbet and the Nineteenth-Century Media Culture. Princeton, 2007, pp. 87, 89–91, 119–21, 137, 140, 197 n. 65, p. 198 n. 88, p. 205 n. 30, p. 210 n. 6, fig. 66 (color), calls it "The Young Ladies of the Village Giving Alms to a Cowherdess in a Valley near Ornans" and dates it 1851; comments on its ironic "mockery of Parisian women and, in another inversion, of the Parisian men who are snared by their charms".